Who gets to write the history lessons? The fight over Australia’s classrooms and campuses

Labor’s push to combat antisemitism raises many questions about academic freedom in Australia. Who decides what students can learn and say about Israel and Palestine?

When does a history lesson become propaganda? The ancient adage is that it’s the victors who provide the answers, but in modern Australia, it’s the Antisemitic Education Taskforce that will decide the curriculum that comes into the classroom, and the conclusions students will arrive at.

The federal minister for education Jason Clare has endorsed every recommendation from the Taskforce, which will include antisemitism, the Holocaust, Jewish history and the contributions of Jewish Australians – let’s see if there’s any room for the more notorious figures such as Rene Rivkin, Abe Saffron, Edward “Teddy the Jewboy” Davis, Isaac “Ikey” Bull, John “Snowy” Cutmore, or if it will be along the lines of the vainglorious and magnificent settler stories that filled the Australian school libraries up until the 1990s.

This is where school education in Australia is heading, where the implementation of this curriculum will commence in 2027 – we’re still not sure what this curriculum is and how it will be taught in schools – and will be fully implemented by 2029.

There’s already a substantial amount of material about the Holocaust in the Year 10 history curriculum, including antisemitism and Nazi ideology. There may be good reasons to improve how it is taught or to give students a fuller understanding of Jewish life in Australia but is it needed and, if so, where is the curriculum for the history of Italian life in Australia? Or Lebanese? Chinese? Croatian? There are a few excellent Palestinian documentary makers residing in Australia: will we hear about their achievements too?

Should students also learn about the Armenian genocide between 1915–23? The numbers should never be a competition, but 1.5 million were killed by Turkish revolutionaries. Or the 10 million Congolese who were killed during the brutal rule of Belgium’s King Leopold? Those stories are a part of history too.

We could go further: should students also learn that algebra has Arabic and Islamic origins? And perhaps students could apply algebraic formulas to determine the total weight of bombs Israel has dropped over Gaza since October 2023 (by the way, the number is 223,000 tons, the highest concentration of explosive tonnage ever, and would give students an excellent lesson in mathematics and history at the same time).

Education ministers – not just Clare, but all the state and territory leaders who have agreed to these reforms – should explain which gaps in the current curriculum they have identified, why other groups and historical incidents are not included, what teachers have told them and what this new material will add to the broader educational experience.

The separation between Jewish identity and Zionism also needs to be included in any proposed curriculum, as Jewish Australians hold a range of views about Israel and Zionism. Of course, students should be able to learn how to recognise antisemitism, along with other forms of discrimination. And they should be able scrutinise Zionism as a political movement, the founding of Israel, the mass displacement of Palestinians in the 1948 Nakba and the conduct of successive Israeli governments since that time.

An education that simply allows the grandstanding of one cultural group and their history, and excludes all the unsavoury parts of that history – as well as excluding everyone else’s version of that history – is nothing more than propaganda, and the application of different standards according to who has the ability to influence governments.

Clare’s own history needs to be inspected as well: he travelled to Israel in 2008 on one of the so-called “study tours”, with travel and accommodation provided by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. Victoria’s Minister for Education, Gabrielle Williams, also ventured on one of these study tours to Israel. How much of this endorsement was influenced by their experiences and input during the meeting?

It’s never a good sign when government ministers themselves start to interfere in the classroom. Certainly, governments are responsible for managing the school education system throughout Australia, but it should be left up to the educational experts to decide the contents of curriculum and how that curriculum should be implemented.

A good example of why politicians should stay out of the classroom – literally and metaphorically – is the Howard government’s school chaplaincy program that was implemented in 2006. The question at the time was why a government would give outside organisations – churches – a privileged place in public schools, and who would answer to parents and teachers when their priorities and understandings about education start to diverge, a question that was never really answered.

It’s the same issue here. Teachers should have a formal and professional role in reviewing resources and the freedom to implement them, without risking disciplinary action from education departments or the courts.

And it’s not only the school education system that’s being targeted here; universities are in the spotlight as well. Under proposals that were released by Clare this week, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency will be able to apply penalties of up to $2 million against universities that are deemed to be not doing enough to stamp out antisemitism on campus. And who knows what that could mean.

Many reports of antisemitic events were the implied offense caused by other students displaying a Palestinian flag, or holding cake stalls to raise funds for Palestinian action, or vexations claims by Jewish benefactors to universities – not students – that events such as student encampments during of 2024 were offensive, and bringing the university into disrepute.

What are the thresholds here? Who decides whether the presence of a Palestinian flag – either held in hand, or sewn into a student backpack or a small badge on a cap – is an antisemitic action? And, in any case, what can a university do to remove that personal paraphernalia, and why should it? Would the same rules apply to Zionist symbolism or the flag of Israel?

We can see a situation developing where deans will be on the lookout for any form of activities that relate to Palestine – an on-campus police state – and shut it down, rather than the risk a $2 million fine for the not-yet-determined failure to effectively combat antisemitism or meet updated governance standards. One would assume deans have better things to do than keep tabs on lecture room discussions about Palestine, or inspecting the offices of academics, or see if they are displaying bunting material that might be offensive to Zionist eyes (which is what occurred at the University of Sydney in 2025, when Dr. David Brophy was ordered to remove a Palestinian flag from his office).

There are direct examples in the United States that show how quickly an issue supposedly about safety on campus can become an avenue for direct intervention in university affairs. The Trump administration used the issue of antisemitism and allegations of ideological influence to implement major changes to the way Harvard University received federal funding, including a government-based assessment of the views represented across the university.

Of course, Australian universities operate through different systems, but the lesson from Harvard shows how the leverage a government has can be used once the funding depends on official views about what universities can teach, who it hires and which views it considers are acceptable.

Universities are now facing a range of contradictory demands: if they crackdown on allegedly pro-Palestinian material to protect Jewish students, they will inevitably face legal challenges, student strikes and, possibly, discrimination lawsuits – even though we’ve seen that this is a secondary consideration, as long as the original discussions about Palestine are shut down, irrespective of the reputational damage caused to the institution. By trying to solve a social issue with financial penalties, the government has created a system that will please nobody and deepens the divide that the Prime Minister keeps saying needs to be bridged through “social cohesion”.

A serious policy against antisemitism should be able to accommodate competing needs and demands. It can protect Jewish students from harassment, allow Palestinian students – and their supporters – speak about their own history, and trust teachers and academics to make the judgements that can occasionally make governments and vested interests feel uncomfortable. It’s also known as academic freedom, and it’s quickly being eroded away.